Changing team structure to increase sales revenue
Finance session
Timothy Keung (Vincent Associates / London School of Economics)
Changing team structure to increase sales revenue
Business Aim
In partnership between the London School of Economics and Vincent Associates, this case study looked at how one of the largest financial institutions in the UK utilized social network analysis to help re-organize their team structure in one of their high street retail branches. The business aim was to find ways to increase team collaboration and improve sales revenue.
Challenges, difficulties faced during application of SNA methodology
Initial resistance from the employees was strong. They were very wary of why the research was being completed, and especially cautious of the detailed questions asked with regards to their communication with colleagues within the network survey. Low response rates (30-40%) and inaccurate network impressions distorted the initial network diagrams.
Solutions to these challenges
Senior management was officially brought in to endorse the research initiative, and confirm that this had nothing to do with their individual performance appraisals and retail branch reviews. To further entice the participants, cash gifts, wine and iPods were awarded when they completed the network surveys. This helped increase the response rate from the initial 30-40% to over 80% and depict the employee networks more accurately.
Result of the SNA application
Network diagrams from the first phase of the research acted as a benchmark for baseline level of communication, to determine the current connectivity of the retail branch. It was identified that the team was not operating at its most efficient optimization, as there were a lot of employees only working with an assigned partner as a team unit. This resulted in slower response times for clients and longer sales cycles.
A change in the makeup of the team structure was suggested and implemented over a 3 month period.
Follow up analysis after the 3 month period documented the vast improvements made to the employee connectivity within the branch. Density level was up by 55%. Communication was marked by a higher level of connectivity between different team members and more effective collaboration.
By comparing sales revenue to a control group (a comparable retail branch with no changes to the team structure), a 17% increase in sales revenue was seen after the 3 month period.
SNA methods and technologies applied
A network survey was designed specifically to mime the work collaboration/communication between the employees within the retail branch. It was administered online and analyzed with the standard SNA principles. Degree centrality was the primary focus of analysis, as it was more pertinent to determine the level of connectivity within the retail branch and which specific employees were collaborating with each other and which were not.
The data was analyzed using Netview, a SNA program developed by a Canadian IT consulting firm (Vincent Associates: http://www.vincentinc.com/ServicesOrgNetworkAnalysis1.aspx) who specialize in data management, warehousing and customer analytics.
Research findings and scientific implications after the application
Due to the increase in team collaboration and faster sales cycles, the corporate organizational development team from the financial institution utilized the findings from this study to build a business case for a region wide re-structuring of how the other retail branch teams operated and configured themselves.
They have also taken the social network theory, principles and tools in-house, and now utilize it to evaluate the effectiveness of team building and change initiatives implemented, through pre & post measurement analysis.
